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Sunday, December 12, 2010

Revision and Beta readers

I'm pronouncing this round of Helen COMPLETE. Now I just have to wait for the betas to read it.

This is the worst part. The waiting for readers to read. It's funny, because the general reader complains about how long it takes authors to write books, but I have a hard time finding people who can keep up with me--reading as quickly as I write. It isn't even that I'm all THAT prolific, but reading is something people do in their spare time, and writing is something I do with the majority of my time. Plus, I need fresh eyes for rereads and altered drafts.

I wonder how many readers it takes to produce one book, on average? How many betas do you need to make it from start to finish for your novels?

I have never felt as though I had too many readers, even when I end up with a glut. I'm always eager for just one more, to look at the latest revisions I've made. What about you?

Ahaha. Yeah, I try to keep the "as-I-write-it" alpha crew to one, TWO at the most. I just need someone who I can bounce ideas off of while I work through things and ask "is this working?" at that point, and I don't really need more than one person for that.

I don't have any alpha readers for my current WIP- we'll see how that works out.

And I know what you mean about waiting- it's hard! And as an update, I hope to have something your way by the end of the week. The last three weeks of the semester are always crazy, compliments of finals and National History Day. And this year I'm taking kids to Washington D.C.- there's been a lot of stuff the last couple weeks for that too.

Hurray for Winter Break! I soooo need it!

Oh, and to answer the question, I think the more the merrier for betas. Within reason, of course. :)

Gene: Wow! You didn't have anyone read over the book after you finished and tell you what they thought before you started pitching it? I can't imagine how much more difficult that must have made your edits!!

I have stuff I should be working on-- a short story about Romulus and Remus, another novel I'm 15K into, but I'm always a mixture of excited/anxious while I wait for my betas to get back to me, no matter how much other stuff I have going on.